


a galaxy full of stars (and they're leading me to you)

by isloremipsumafterall



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-10 23:42:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7866040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isloremipsumafterall/pseuds/isloremipsumafterall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Han and Chewie do find the Falcon on Jakku and along with it a young Rey. Han and Leia take her in and can see that she possesses the Force, while Leia does the best she can to train her she still knows that Luke could show her more and needs to find her brother. </p><p>As per the events of the movie Leia sends Poe to retrieve the map and when Rey hears that Poe goes missing she immediately goes after to find her lost friend. </p><p>Along the way she meets Finn and can't help but feel like they were meant to find each other and go on this adventure together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be for my Star Wars Big Bang but apparently that's been cancelled as the tumblr no longer exists so I thought I'd post them up in chapters here now anyway. 
> 
> A million and one thanks to my beta Lexi with whom I'd have never have gotten this far without.

For as long as Rey could remember, Jakku never changed.

She knew that years before her arrival there had been a battle on the planet, the wreckage of both Imperial and Rebellion ships was proof of that. But never in her life on Jakku could she think of anything truly new that had arrived.

Until the day she looked over in the shipyard that Unkar Plutt claimed as his own and noticed there was a round ship there. An old ship by the looks of it, it would have been better as scrap metal or serving as a garbage containment. Yet there was something about it that Rey couldn’t quite place, like someone had put a lot of effort into maintaining this ship despite its age and falling pieces.

It was that curiosity that drove her to sneaking into the shipyard while everyone was busy with their day-to-day life and into the strange-looking ship. She’d been right in her estimate, someone had put a lot of care into it. Her hands trailed over the buttons and levers at the control and she smiled to herself.

Perhaps one day when her family returned she could fly something like this with them.

The sudden creaking at the door made her stiffen up and her heart beat fast in her chest. She ran to the compartments she had noticed before, clearly set up for smuggling and quickly ducked into them, placing the sheet of metal above her and shivering with the sudden fear of being caught.

If it was Unkar, he may threaten to never take parts from her again, forcing her to depend on another trader in a village much farther away and lowering her chances of survival. If it was thieves, then the chances of survival were even lower.

She clenched her hands into fists, screwed her eyes shut and then let out a low breath, forcing herself to remain as calm as she could.

Voice and feet echoed above her, a guttural growl made her brow furrow in confusion as it sounded like Shyriiwook. The last time a Wookiee had been on Jakku had been when she was ten and they had crashed there. For a month they had waited to be picked up and Rey had run into them enough to pick up the odd language. Then she’d watched them leave as their family came for them, a hollow pit in her stomach as she watched the sky.

“Let’s get a move on, Chewie,” a male voice said and if Rey had to bet, she’d think they were human. “I want to get off this junkyard of a planet before Unkar Plutt tries to steal it from me again.”

Their feet sounded too loud as they walked over to where she was hiding and Rey winced, rubbing at her ears but trying to continue to listen.

When she heard the hum of the engines starting up she began to panic, shoving the metal sheet off and scrambling up to race into the cockpit.

“Stop!” Rey yelled and the man in the pilot seat whirled around to stare at her. “I mean…” She fumbled for the words, “Please wait, I need to get off.”

The man’s eyebrows shot up and he exchanged a glance with the Wookiee.

“You need to get off?” He said slowly, in disbelief, and then snorted, “Sounds good to me, kid, what the hell were you doing on my ship anyway?”

“I was just looking,” Rey defended hotly, curling her hands into fabric of her pants. “And this is Unkar Plutt’s ship.”

“Ha, who stole it from me.” The man stuck out his thumb and turned it in his direction. “Unkar Plutt doesn’t even know what it’s worth.”

Rey blinked, “It’s not worth much, to be honest. It’s an old ship. You wouldn’t be able to sell it on the market. Even if Unkar Plutt thought to put a compressor on the ignition line, which would just cause stress on the hyperdrive and not help the flight.”

“You know your ships,” The man leaned back in the seat and regarded her, “Not bad.”

Rey flushed a bit under the praise, unused to hearing it, “What is this ship anyway?”

“This is the Millennium Falcon,” the man boasted proudly.

“Wait…” Rey’s eyes widened, “ _ The _ Millennium Falcon? The ship that made the Kessel run in fourteen parsecs!”

“Twelve,” The man interrupted and crossed his arms, muttering indignantly.

“That means….you’re Han Solo!” Rey couldn’t contain her excitement, looking back and forth between Han Solo and the Wookiee that must have been Chewbacca.

Han rolled his eyes, “I could be. And who are you, kid?”

“I’m Rey,” she said, feeling awkward all of a sudden.

“Just Rey, hunh? No last name to go with that?”

Rey shook her head, “I…I don’t know where my family is.” Her head shot up and she frowned. “But they will be coming back for me which is why I need to leave.”

“You want to stay here?” Han scoffed. “Look you’re a smart kid, you could be doing things out there, not scavenging around here for a family that’s not coming back.”

“They’re coming back!” she practically yelled, tears sprang to her eyes and she saw Han’s look soften. But it was too late and she turned around to barrel back down the hallway and off the ramp of the ship, running as fast as she could back to her speeder, the blinding light of the sun glistened off the sand and made her eyes itch even more.

She ignored the calls of her name and made it to her speeder, setting off with only the slightest bit of hesitation, looking behind her to where Han stood at the ramp of the ship. A ship that he had come back for.

She wondered what it would be like for someone to love something that much... but she threw that thought away and started her speeder, heading back to the hollowed out AT-AT she called home.

~~

Her stomach grumbled in its hunger but she ignored it, curling up even more in her hammock.

When there was a loud bang from the outside she nearly spilled out of the hammock in her shock, yelping at the noise and glaring at it. It was probably people from another village who thought her AT-AT could be used for parts.

With a huff she got up and grabbed her staff, marching to the door and yanking it open, her staff swinging in the air and stopping just in time so it didn’t hit Han Solo where he stood.

“Nice job,” he commented drily, looking at her staff, which still hung in the air above him when she froze.

She pulled it back towards her and rested her weight on it, looking at Han with guarded eyes. “What do you want.”

“Look,” Han sighed and ran his hand through his hair, “I’ve asked around about you. No one knows where you’ve come from or anything about you. I meant what I said, kid, this place is no good for you, you need to get out. Chewie and I can drop you off at Coruscant and give you a new start or… you could come with us.” Han looked away from her, sticking his hands just above his belt awkwardly, “We’ve been thinking about taking on more of a crew.”

“Are you offering me a job?” Rey blinked, unable to stop the slow smile that was spreading across her face until the reality of it hit her and her shoulders fell. “I can’t.”

“This about your family?” Han asked, gentler this time.

She nodded, grasping hard at the staff in her hands and letting the press of metal against her skin ground her so she didn’t start to cry again.

Han looked like he was debating with himself and then shook his head. “Kid, they’re not coming back.”

“I know,” she said hollowly. For the first time she let the unfortunate reality of her abandonment snake up around her, filling her with despair.

“You deserve better. Just…come with Chewie and me. If you don’t like what you see, we’ll fly you back to this junkyard.”

She looked up at Han and didn’t see pity in his eyes, just an understanding, and Rey swallowed hard, tempted to hug the older man.

Instead she grinned and nodded, “Okay.”

“Good,” Han let out a breath, “Now pack up, I wanna make it off this forsaken planet before someone tries to sell everything I own.”

Rey bit her lip so she didn’t giggle at his attempt to brush off the care she had just seen from him and instead focused on packing up as ordered.

~~

There was green all around, real living plants! And the world thrummed with an energy that filled Rey herself. She never wanted to leave.

Han noticed her excitement and told her just to wait outside while he got someone, walking off with a small smile and Rey readily rushed forward to poke at some of the leaves.

They felt waxy in her hands, strange and different from the mechanical parts that she was used to, but so alive. Quietly she told herself that she preferred the mechanical pieces that made logical sense and fit together, but everything in the forest was new and tempting to discover.

“It’s called a Tarisian Rose, one of the few left in the galaxy,” a woman’s voice said from behind, and Rey turned to look at her, sticking her hands behind her back like she’d been caught looking at something she shouldn’t have. “The planet was bombarded and only a few made it, we’ve been trying to make them thrive on other planets.” The woman nodded to the flower but her eyes stayed on Rey and she smiled. “This one’s a fighter.”

“It’s lovely,” Rey stated and cleared her throat, “I’m Rey.”

“I know, Han told me.” The woman offered Rey her hand to shake, “I’m Leia.”

Her hands were warm, calloused, though not as hard as Rey’s own. This was a woman who hadn’t sat idly by a day in her life.

“Han also tells me you’re from Jakku and you’ve got no parents.” Leia cut straight to the chase, her brown eyes lingering on Rey, and though they were stern there was also a warmth in them that Rey hadn’t really seen in somebody before.

Rey nodded, averting her eyes, “I’m alone.”

“You don’t have to be,” Leia said, without hesitation. “I’ve talked to our comms station, they can leave a unit on Jakku for any information about your family. Stay with us for a little while.”

“With all the plants?” Rey blurted out and Leia laughed.

“With all the plants. You can help Han out.” She leaned in just a little. “He needs it. I love him but he doesn’t know when to stop.” Leia then sighed, “Not that I blame him these days.” There was something cold in her voice, a loss of something that Rey could just sense.

She reached out to rest her hand on Leia’s arm, looking up at her and hoping she was offering the correct kind of comfort.

Leia looked at her again, tilting her head slightly as she did. “You remind me a bit of my brother,” Leia said softly, lost in thought.

Rey smiled at it anyways. She had a feeling it was meant with affection.


	2. Chapter One - Jakku

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hadn't planned up updating every day but since it's Finnrey Friday I thought I would (alas this chapter doesn't have finnrey yet)

Even though she couldn’t feel the wind blasting around the Falcon as she edged the speed on, there was still a thrill of exhilaration in Rey’s stomach that made her laugh gleefully.

“Having fun?” Poe’s voice drawled across the headsets, reminding her of her task.

“Considering that I’m winning, yes.” She grinned, even though Poe couldn’t see it, and pushed the levers of the Falcon forward, speeding up just a little more to show off.

“For now,” Poe’s jovial voice came back on the comms, and she could tell he was having just as much fun as she was. This wasn’t their first race after all but it was with Poe as the new Commander for an X-wing squadron. Last night she, Poe, Kare, and Jessika had celebrated, during which she and Poe had bet on another race.

To be completely fair, they were tied in wins and losses against each other and it could have gone either way, but the sudden beeping in their headset coupled with Leia’s, “Return to base, now,” had them groaning and calling their race a draw.

Rey set the Falcon down and stepped out, seeing Leia waiting there with an amused smile on her face. It had been four years since Leia and Han had taken Rey in as their own daughter, four years since she had set foot on Jakku, and while she still longed to know who she was, she no longer felt like she didn’t have a family.

“Sorry to call you both back before you could finish,” Leia looked over the both of them, “But I’ve got a mission for Poe.” Immediately she could see Poe slip into a more authoritative stance, his admiration for Leia was as clear as day and Rey would have teased him about it had Leia not been standing right there. Leia’s eyes flickered over to Rey for a second and she hesitated, making Rey tense up as she had a feeling she wasn’t going to like what Leia was going to say.

“We’ve got intel about the map.” Leia didn’t have to say which one, there was only one map that meant a lot to her, and that was the one leading to her brother, Luke, “We picked up some communication on Jakku, an old friend of mine says he found something there.”

Rey stiffened at the mention of her old planet, her thoughts momentarily shifting to cold nights alone and a hunger in her stomach that never seemed to end. Leia caught it and reached over to rest her hand on Rey’s arm.

“I should go with him,” Rey said before anyone could say anything else but Leia shook her head.

“We need this to be a solo mission Rey, I’m sorry, but the First Order has been spotted in that system.”

“I could help,” Rey protested, “You know I could.”

Still Leia just shook her head again, “We’ll talk after your training.” She stated, “I’ve got to brief Poe.” She led Poe away, shooting Rey one last apologetic look, and Rey huffed.

Poe’s droid, BB-8, rolled over to her feet and beeped curiously at her. Rey smiled at it, “It does sound like a serious mission,” she said. “You’ll have to look over Poe.”

BB-8 trilled its agreement and began to roll beside her as she walked, keeping her company as she waited for Leia’s return.

~~

Approximately one month after she had been taken in, Leia had come to her with a startling development: Rey had the Force, an indescribable power that ran through the universe that some people could sense and use to their advantage, be it for good or evil.

Leia explained everything from that point on, all about her brother and father and son, about how Rey would need a teacher. Without her brother around, however, Leia was the only person familiar enough with the Force who could teach Rey and thus began their weekly sessions to help Rey understand.

Rey fidgeted in her meditative stance, too worked up thinking about Jakku and the map to focus. BB-8 had long since left her, being called back to the hanger bay.

“Poe’s gone already,” Leia said as she walked in and then held up a hand to stop any protests, “I know you want to join him and I’d personally feel better if you could but…”

“You don’t like that the First Order could sense me,” Rey said quietly, knowing why Leia wouldn’t send her.

“We don’t need another loss.” Leia sat down across from Rey and instantly Rey was tempted to hug her, it always hurt to see the pain in Leia’s eyes as she thought of the past.

Instead she closed her eyes and took a breath, let the Force flow around her like a physical thing, warm and inviting, and she pushed that comfort towards Leia.

When she opened her eyes she could see Leia blinking back some of the tears, but they were grateful this time instead of sad, so she considered her effort to be a success.

“I used to try to teach Ben like this,” Leia said suddenly, taking Rey by surprise, “I was never able to connect with him, not with Snoke always whispering to him through the Force.” Leia sighed, “I thought sending him to Luke would be the right thing.” She then met Rey’s eyes, “You’ve got a lot of good in you, Rey, and a lot of power too. Try never to let the latter overwhelm the former .”

They both stood and Rey gave in, hugging Leia tightly, who returned the hug just as much.

“What’s this?” Han’s voice came from the doorway and he looked between the both of them.

Neither said anything as they pulled him into the hug, thinking only of family and how it could be lost and found.

~~

The next day Leia reported the worst, “Poe hasn’t sent word in over twenty four hours.”

“I’m going after him,” Rey said, her chin sticking out in determination.

“I get the feeling I can’t stop you,” Leia’s eyes had a twinkle in them, “Any more than someone could have stopped Luke from coming after us.”

Rey had heard the story of Bespin before, from Leia and Lando who insisted she ignore Han’s version. She hadn’t heard Leia relate it to her though and it gave her a warm feeling. They walked side by side to the hanger bay, Rey struggling on how to ask what ship she could take. When they got there, Han and Chewbacca were already standing by the Falcon and he walked over to meet them.

“Looks like you’re ready to go, kid,” Han greeted, nodding his head towards the Falcon.

“What?” Rey asked, a little baffled.

“Chewie and I got a job to do that requires a bigger ship and you need all the help you can get to get out of there fast so… don’t scratch it,” He held up a finger in warning and Rey rolled her eyes, knowing it was mostly a façade. “Just, you know, be careful.”

Rey grinned, “As careful as you?”

“Much more than that,” Leia cut in, rolling her eyes when Han made an indignant noise. She turned to Rey and smiled at her. “May the Force be with you, Rey,” Leia said, turning away when the hangar bay team called her name name being called she turned to talk to the hanger bay team.

“You will have to meet Chewie and I at a rendezvous point though. We might need the ship too,” Han told her, and Rey narrowed her eyes.

“What for?” she asked, resisting the urge to cross her arms.

Han mumbled something and all she could make out was ‘rathtars’. While she had no idea what they were, she knew Han’s business and that it couldn’t end well.

“Does Leia know that you’re transporting rathtars?”

“No, and don’t tell her,” Han warned. “In fact I think you need to be going now.”

It was only the fact that Poe could be in trouble that kept her from sticking around to continue to pester Han about it for fun. She said her goodbyes to Han, Leia, and Chewie and boarded the Falcon. The only thing she carried with her was her small pack and the old staff that she had made on Jakku for protection.

As she hit hyperspace she bit her lip, the full force that she was returning to Jakku hitting her suddenly and it made her feel uneasy, like something big was about to happen.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she said idly to herself, pretending it was Han saying it next to her, she could also hear Leia in her head telling her not to ignore her feelings.

It was hours later when she arrived, seeing a Star Destroyer orbiting the planet that made her frown and fly as stealthily as she could. Night had just fallen on Jakku and, out of force of habit more than anything else, Rey landed the Falcon near the hollowed out AT-AT she used to live in. She took a step outside and shivered in the cool desert air. The planet felt even colder to her now that she was aware of the Force; like there was no life to it at all and, more than that, it felt like tragedy had come to it.

Rey walked a little farther away and her ears picked up a familiar beep that had her racing across the sand dunes. When she rounded a tall one she could see BB-8 being dragged in a net, angrily beeping at a green-skinned alien that Rey recognized as Teedo even though it had been years.

She raced forward, yelling at Teedo to stop, that BB-8 was her droid and after a few choice words she had BB-8 free.

“Are you all right?” she asked the droid, taking off its antenna to straighten and putting it back. “Where’s Poe?”

BB-8 gave a low mournful beep, informing her that they didn’t know where Poe was beyond that they’d been instructed to flee.

Rey sighed, “Come on, we’ll go back to the Falcon and get you cleaned up and then tomorrow we can check the nearby villages to see if anyone knows.” She refused to accept that Poe could be dead, clutching her staff until her knuckles were white as she led the charge back to the Falcon.

Tomorrow would be better, she was sure of it.

~~

Unkar Platt hadn’t changed at all and sneered at Rey when he saw her.

“The scavenger returns,” he mocked. Rey gritted her teeth, tempted to beat any information he might have out of him. “What do you want?”

“Information. A friend of mine was on this planet yesterday. I’d like to know what happened to him.”

“Oh,” Unkar leaned forward, “I could tell you but it’ll cost you.” He glanced down, “That droid for instance.”

“He’s not for sale,” Rey snapped sharply.

“Then neither is the information I might have,” Unkar told her.

“Fine, we’ll get it elsewhere. Come on, BB-8.” Rey marched out of the tent and through the village, hoping that the next village would give more intel. She’d only made it halfway to the Falcon when someone grabbed her from behind, and from the corner of her eye she could see a bag placed over BB-8.

“Hey,” Rey yelled angrily and forced her head back, knocking into her assailant and surprising them into letting go. She spun with her staff in her hands, whacking them in the head and forcing them down before she started on the second attacker and made quick work of him too.

She pulled the bag off BB-8 and was about to ask if it was all right when BB-8 let out a sharp trill and Rey turned to see what had gotten their attention. A man in a jacket stood watching them but it wasn’t that which had Rey staring.

It was the fact that the jacket belonged to Poe and the man was definitely not him.


	3. Chapter Two - Jakku/Falcon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this chapter isn't a disappointment, some of the dialogue will be borrowed or altered from the movie from here on out as it semi plays out as usual.

Rey was racing across the hot sand before she could even think about it, anger in her veins. As soon as the man spotted her running towards him he jerked and bolted, but Rey knew this place as she had lived here for years. She cut through several stalls in the market and practically slammed into the man, tripping him with her staff and forcing him on his back.

“Where did you get that jacket, thief?” she yelled as BB-8 rolled into the tent they were in.

“Thief? What are you talking about?” The man seemed startled, staring up at her with wide eyes. He yelped when BB-8 shocked him and glared at the droid.

“The jacket, it came from his master, Poe.” She tilted her head to indicate BB-8 but didn’t let up at all where she had her staff pressed against his chest.

“Wait- Poe Dameron?” The man’s gaze flew to BB-8, “You’re it, you’re his droid! Hey!” He yelled when BB-8 shocked him again, “Knock it off! I knew him, I knew Poe. I helped him escape from the First Order but our ship crashed.” The man suddenly hesitated, “I’m sorry, he didn’t make it.”

Rey’s blood ran cold and, numbly, she pulled her staff away. The man stood up; she knew she should ask him where the First Order was or something to get more information, but all she could feel was her sorrow over the loss of her friend.

Part of her felt like she should have known, would have felt his death through the Force and maybe, just maybe, that meant she hadn’t lost somebody else. Her more rational side, however, didn’t seem to agree and she blinked back the tears in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” the man said again. His hands flew around him like he wasn’t sure if he should offer her comfort or not. “He was a good man.”

“How did you know him?” Rey turned to the man, choosing to focus on anything else beyond her feelings just then.

The man faltered, stammering a little before blurting out, “I’m with the Resistance, yeah, yeah, that’s it. I’m  _ with _ the Resistance.”

Perhaps in another lifetime where Rey hadn’t grown up with the Resistance for the past few years she’d have believed that, but she looked him over and knew that she would have remembered him had he been a part of that group; he was too handsome to just forget. Regardless she didn’t sense any maliciousness in his lie and decided to play along.

“I’ve never met a Resistance fighter before, aside from Poe that is.” BB-8 beeped at her curiously, asking her what she was doing given that she was part of the Resistance and she shot a glance downwards and mouthed ‘play along’.

“Well this is what we look like. Some of us. Others look different.” The man seemed frazzled as he spoke, running a hand over his head.

“BB-8 says that Poe was on an important mission. That he has something the Resistance needs.” Of course she knew it was the map but she wondered how much this man knew.

“A map,” the man said without pausing. “To Luke Skywalker. The First Order is looking for it and-” He cut off when he glanced to a tent across the way and his breath hitched.

Without another word the man grabbed Rey’s hand much to her surprise and pulled her forward and into a run.

“Hey!” Rey protested, trying to take her hand back, but the man wouldn’t let go and just yelled for her to follow him. Behind her laser blasts hit the tent where they had just been, “I know how to run without you holding my hand! BB-8!” She turned back briefly towards the droid, “Stay close!”

As she said it she spotted the Stormtroopers that the man must have noticed before they started to run., They were issuing some order on their radio as they watched the two run.

Technically they should have had no issue with her, shouldn’t have known who she was, “They’re shooting at both of us!”

“They saw you with me, you’re marked,” the man explained as he rounded another stall. “Aren’t there any blasters around here?!” he yelled desperately and then ducked into a stall, letting go of Rey as they both caught their breath.

BB-8 rolled up behind them and Rey was about to ask what they should do next when the man gestured for her to keep quiet and looked as though he was focusing hard on something. What he heard had him breathing hard again and he grabbed Rey’s hand once more to pull her up.

“Stop taking my hand!” Rey yelled, but followed anyway, and the next thing she knew her hand was released as they were both sent flying through the air from the blast that rocked the ground behind them.

Rey spit up sand and scrambled up, spotting BB-8 but not the man right away. She looked around desperately before she saw him and ran over.

“Hey!” She helped him roll over a bit and he squinted up at her as he came to his senses. He didn’t look hurt at all thankfully, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

“Are you okay?” he asked, sitting up fast , reaching out to her and looking her over. Rey paused as it felt like some part of her universe tilted on her.

Here she was back on Jakku and trying to survive yet again, but this time there was a man, whose name she didn’t even know, who was asking her if she was all right. Years ago she’d have given anything to have someone who cared about her like that and even now, after so long, it touched her.

Her throat felt dry as she swallowed and nodded, “Yes.” She stuck her hand as she stood, “Follow me.”

He took it and this time Rey didn’t let go right away, letting her hand linger for a few seconds more, feeling like she was just a kid again on this planet but the overwhelming loneliness she had felt was wiped out by the warmth of the man’s hand.

The TIE Fighters fire down on them again and Rey tore her hand away to force herself into action and began to run back to where the Falcon was, thankfully she had taken it to the shipyard that morning so they weren’t far away.

“We need a ship!” the man yelled.

“We’ve got one! It may look like garbage but it’ll do!” Rey said back.

“Well then we need a pilot.”

“We’ve got one of those too.” Rey shot a brief grin at him and raced up the ramp of the Falcon. “The gun’s down there.” She pointed down the hallway and raced to the pilot’s chair.

She grabbed the headset so she could communicate with the man while he was in the gunseat and started up the Falcon with ease. The two TIE Fighters blasted at the spot that she had just taken off fromand she gunned it to try to out race them.

“I can do this, I can do this,” she heard the man mutter at the same time as she did. “BB-8, hold on to something,” she called to the droid who was bouncing around behind her.

It was no good in the clear skies of Jakku though, where they could be easily spotted and she heard rather than saw the Falcon’s  gun fire, though it wasn’t hitting anything.

“Stay low!” the man yelled.

“What?” she asked, wondering what kind of advice that was.

“Stay low, it confuses their tracking.”

“Ah,” she muttered, mostly to herself, and she sent the Falcon down into a swoop towards the ground in a dive that she pulled out of just before they hit the ground. A TIE Fighter flew overhead and shot at them and Rey growled, “What are you doing back there, are you ever going to fire?”

“I’m working on it, what about shields?”

Rey struggled to reach over the cockpit while flying steady to hit the button she’d need to for shields and wished that Chewbacca or Han was there, “This is not easy without a co-pilot.”

“Try sitting in this thing,” the man said and Rey, who in fact had, snickered.

There was some sounds of the gun firing and then one of the TIE Fighters blew up, and the man whooped in laughter. “Think I’m getting the hang of this.” Right after though the other TIE Fighter shot at them and the man cursed, “The gun’s stuck in the forward position!”

Ahead of them Rey spotted the familiar ship graveyard that she used to scavenge from and blew out a breath, “Well hold on because I’ve got an idea.”

She flew into the old Imperial ship, completely focused on getting through it. She could hear the man questioning what she was doing, but she tuned him until they shot out the other side as she gunned it, looping the Falcon around.

“Now!” she yelled and could hear the man fire just as the TIE Fighter flew out after them. It was blown to pieces and they both whooped and laughed.

She set the controls up and out of the Jakku system, far, far away from the First Order forces. Rey jumped out of her seat, putting it on autopilot and met the man in the hallway.

“That was amazing-” Rey began, babbling at the same time as the man, they were both lost in the excitement of what they had done. Nothing had ever felt like that before, the ease of working alongside someone who just seemed to know what she was planning. It was exhilarating and Rey felt completely alive, every part of her thrumming with boundless energy.

“I’m Rey,” she said when they both stopped, smiling shyly as she realized she had never introduced herself.

“Finn,” he said after a beat, and looked back at her with an equally soft smile.

This, Rey decided, was something she could get used to.


	4. Chapter Three - Falcon/Freighter

Rey wasn’t certain how long she stood there just staring at Finn, caught in the moment. But the moment was shortly broken when she heard a strange popping noise behind them just as Finn was saying her name.

She whirled around to see steam blasting out from a grate and rushed over to it, pulling the grate away and stepping into the machine parts hidden below to assess the damage.

“Not good, not good,” she muttered to herself, hissing as her fingers touched hot metal.

“Whoa, what’s going on?” Finn leaned over her with BB-8 right beside him. “We’ve got to get out of this system – they’re probably hunting for us right now.”

“If I don’t fix this we’re not going to make it out of this system alive either way,” Rey snapped back, her annoyance that the Falcon was malfunctioning was fraying her nerves. “Do you even know where we’re going?” She did of course, but since Finn was acting like a Resistance officer…well, it begged the question of how much he knew. “And pass me the Pilex driver, hurry!”

She heard Finn rifling and BB-8 trilling questions to him but couldn’t hear exactly what he was saying. She interrupted them to tell Finn he was picking up the wrong driver a few times, at the same time keeping an eye on the steam that was still coming out of the machine part.

“The Ileenium system?” she questioned as she took the driver and glanced over at BB-8, who merely beeped at her.

“Yup, that’s the one – Ileenium system,” Finn nodded,. “We need to get there as quick as we can.”

“We?” Rey couldn’t help but retort, “Who says I’m going with you?”

“Where else would you be going?” Finn looked down into the hole she was in with a frown. “Do you have to go meet someone? A boyfriend? You got a cute boyfriend?”

Another time Rey would have felt flattered by the interest, but steam blew into her face and irritated her, “That’s none of your business.”

Before either of them could say anything else the ship suddenly lurched with a feeling that Rey knew well.

“Tractor beam,” she swore.

Finn seemed shaken as he stared down the hallway, “The First Order. We need to hide, fast.”

“Get down here.” Rey felt cold all over at the idea they’d been captured by the First Order. Finn helped her get BB-8 below and then squished into the container beside her. “Here,” she threw him a gas mask, “put it on, I’ve got an idea.”

She was about to release the poisonous gas back into the Falcon when a familiar growl made her freeze. It had sounded a lot like Chewbacca. She listened to the footsteps with a tilt of her head and then grinned.

The grate they had closed over top of them slid back and Han and Chewbacca both stood there looking down at them.

“You get yourself into trouble, kid?” Han put the blaster in his hand away, “We saw you just floating there. Tell me you didn’t wreck my ship.”

“It’s fine,” Rey rolled her eyes but could tell that Han was also giving her a quick once over to ensure she hadn’t been hurt either. “We were just fixing something.”

“We?” Han’s eyes skidded over to Finn next to her, “Who’s he.”

“A friend,” Rey said firmly, resting her hand near Finn’s. “But there’s something more important we need to discuss. Poe found the map to Luke.”

Chewbacca helped them out of the container and they both scrambled up, Finn standing just a little bit behind her and still eyeing Han and Chewbacca cautiously.

Han breathed out slowly, “I’ll be damned, you did it.”

“Uh, just hold up a parsec, who are these guys, Rey?” Finn asked, stepping forward so he was beside her and Rey looked over at him.

“This is Han Solo and Chewbacca,” Rey explained, and was about to say Han was her foster dad when Finn cut her off.

“Han Solo? The Rebellion General?” Finn looked completely poleaxed by this revelation and Rey tried not to laugh at how cute he looked when confused.

“The one and only,” Han drawled, puffing up his chest a bit with pride. “Now let’s see this map of yours.”

“BB-8?” Rey looked down at the droid who chirped back at her and dutifully showed the map.

“I’ve never seen this section of stars.” Han frowned and, next to him, Chewbacca growled his own confusion.

“It looks like it’s missing something,” Rey said, and her shoulders fell. “I don’t think it’s complete.”

The ship suddenly rocked and Rey and Finn both grabbed each other to keep their balance.

“What was that?” Finn asked and Han blew out a sigh.

“Rathtars.” Han raced out of the ship and they all bounded after him.

“Rathtars?” Finn repeated, nearly yelling and his eyes were wide.

“You never told me why you were transporting them.” Rey looked around cautiously, she wasn’t sure what rathtars looked like exactly, but she had a feeling it couldn’t be good.

“Cause weapons cost money and someone’s gotta get that for the Rebellion,” Han grumbled.

“What is a rathtar?” Rey asked but then jumped at the sudden thumping noise next to them, she whirled around at the same time Finn did and her mouth dropped at the tentacle creature who had smacked a window next to them.

“Those,” Finn said and shuddered.

The ship lurched again, a sign they’d either been hit or were being forcefully docked and Rey was betting on the latter.

“You two hide, the droid stays with me,” Han told them and pushed them towards a grate and they snuck into the lower level of the ship.

It was hard to hear the words spoken above but Rey and Finn crawled hurriedly over in an attempt to get a look at whoever had boarded. Han seemed to have gotten himself in trouble again, and Rey didn’t like how this was going at all.

Suddenly the other door on the other side opened and Finn looked over at her. In tandem they began crawling the other way. When they spotted the weapons the men were carrying they exchanged an uneasy look.

“We have to do something,” Finn said, his voice only heard by Rey.

“Levers,” Rey said suddenly and crawled in another direction, “If we close the blast doors we may be able to trap them.” She hurriedly flicked the fuses to reset them as Finn looked between her and the levers in worry. “There,” She said and breathed a sigh of relief, flashing a smile at Finn who grinned back at her.

Their smiles faded however when the lights flickered, followed by the monstrous sound above them of something escaping its hold.

“Oh no…” Rey said at the same time as screams filled the air.

They could barely hear Han yelling for everyone to get back to the Falcon above the din, and Finn scrambled to remove the grate up above them. He climbed up and then reached down to pull Rey up. They stood and checked the corridor which just looked like a disaster zone and smelled like burning flesh from the blaster fire.

“This way,” Finn said and his hand found Rey’s automatically as they raced through the hallway. They would have stayed like that if not for the rathtar that came barreling down the hall and grabbed Finn by his leg. “Rey!” he screamed as he was pulled away. She tried to keep her grip on his hand, but couldn’t, and froze as she watched the rathtar pull him from her view.

“Finn,” she whispered, and then yelled his name louder and ran down the hall after him. The doors shut around her and blocked her off. Rey shut her eyes and tried to sense him, but her emotions were all over the place and distracting her. She swore under her breath and tried once more to see if she could find him when she ran into a console. The videos there made it easy to see what was happening around the ship, and Rey scanned them until she saw Finn, still being dragged around by the rathtar.

“C’mon,” she muttered and waited for the right moment, with a flick of the switch she shut the door on the rathtar’s tentacle, freeing Finn. She bolted from the room to reach him and then grabbed his hand.

“It had me! But the door-”

“That was lucky,” she stated and dragged him forward. They continued onwards until they were racing up the Falcon’s ramp.

They only dropped each other’s hands when Han instructed Finn to help Chewbacca and yelled for Rey to get up to the controls and help him.

“Hold on back there,” Han yelled to Finn and Chewbacca as he and Rey prepared the ship for lightspeed. A rathtar attached itself to the ship, and Rey barely held back her yell, then  watched as the ship tearing free from the cargo area and hitting lightspeed disintegrated the rathtar.

She caught her breath and sagged in the co-pilots chair, looking over at Han. “Looks like we made it, what do we do now?”

“Head to an old friend’s place,” Han stated as he set the course. “We’re going to need some help.


	5. Chapter Four - Takodana

As soon as the autopilot was set, both Rey and Han hopped out of their chairs, then entered the main section of the Falcon. Rey hovered behind Han as they both took a look at Chewbacca to make sure he was okay, and upon seeing he was, she breathed a sigh of relief and wandered over to the table where Finn was sitting.

“You okay?” she asked, looking at him. She didn’t spot any new scratches, but there was a bruise on his wrist that was probably from being dragged off by rathtars, and she winced in sympathy.

“Are all Wookiees like that?” Finn replied in answer, sinking back into the bench.

Rey smiled. “They’re mostly a gentle race,” she told him, and patted him on the shoulder. “You just found him on a bad day.”

“I know all about those,” Finn snorted and then fell quiet, his face serious. “Rey,” he began, “There’s something you should know…” Finn shifted on the bench, looking uncomfortable and like he was uncertain how to go on.

Unfortunately he had no time to try, as steam came rising up under the grates again and Han swore at it, calling Rey to help him out. She shot Finn an apologetic look, hoping to make him feel better, but Finn looked the picture of misery.

She’d have to find out what was wrong later as Han needed her help now and it took them a few hours to get the ship back in working condition.

“Thought I told you to take care of her,” Han grumbled as they made their way back to the pilot seats with Finn, Chewbacca and BB-8 trailing behind them.

“It was like this already,” Rey retorted and grinned when Han frowned, it wasn’t something he could easily deny after all.

Takodana, as Han had called it, came into view and Rey gasped at the beauty of it. The trees were higher than anything she’d seen before and even more green than some of the planets they’d been set in before. She didn’t notice Han looking back and Chewbacca and smiling at Rey’s reaction; she was too focused on the world below her.

After they landed, Rey went practically skipping out of the ship, breathing in the scent of the earth on Takodana and feeling just how alive it was. BB-8 bumped into her leg and she looked down at the droid, laughing, tempted to run straight into the forest with abandon.

“Finn,” she said to herself and then walked back into the Falcon, he had to see this too, no doubt he’d love it as much as she did. She was about to yell his name when the voices she heard further down the corridor stopped her in her tracks.

“I’m a big deal to the Resistance,” Finn said. But there was a nervousness in his voice, and Rey bit her lip. He was still using that lie, but Rey could just sense there was something more than that, an implicit trust that she had in Finn that she knew wouldn’t be misplaced.

Rey snuck down the hall and went back outside, waiting for Han to step up behind her. He passed over her weapon with a grim look and clapped her on the shoulder. “Just in case,” he said, and nodded towards the staff that was still slung on her back, “Take care of that, too.”

Finn joined her with a blaster hanging from a strap that Rey recognized as one of the ones Han usually hid in the Falcon.

“Are we going to need these?” Finn asked, looking down at the blaster and there was a flash of determination in his face coupled with uncertainty that Rey wanted to know more about.

“I don’t know, Han’s always ready for a fight.” Rey shrugged and trailed after Han with Finn by her side. “What were going to say back there?”

Finn’s head shot up and he laughed awkwardly before swallowing hard, “Nothing.” He sounded defeated. “It’s nothing.”

BB-8 trilled next to her in question and Rey shrugged in response. If Finn didn’t want to tell her she wouldn’t push him then. The gates they arrived at were overgrown with vines and the statue in the courtyard was old, yet it looked well taken care of.

“Where are we?” Rey asked but Han held up a hand.

“Just don’t look at anything.”

Finn and Rey exchanged a confused glance but when the doors opened they understood, all sorts of species of aliens lounged around the room in a cacophony of noise and Rey’s eyes were wide as she tried to take it all in at once.

Even working for the Resistance for the last few years she had never seen this many aliens in one place, and she tried to close her gaping mouth but she wanted to ask a million questions about the place.

“Han!” A sharp voice called through the din and immediately everything fell silent. A short alien that only came up to Rey’s waist came marching towards them. The goggles she wore made her eyes look much larger than they really were, and she scoffed when she reached Han. “Where’s my boyfriend?”

“Chewie’s still on the ship. We need some help, Maz.” Han jerked his thumb behind him to indicate to Rey, Finn, and BB-8.

Maz looked at them and hummed before she turned, gesturing for them to follow her.

“First thing, we need to get a signal to the Resistance,” Han said as they took a seat.

Rey became distracted by the variety of fruits that she had never seen and took one, biting into the juicy flesh and only partly paying attention to the conversation.

“I believe that Mon Mothma should be ready to do so,” Maz began, but she was interrupted by Finn.

“You’re both wrong, we need to run,” Finn said and Rey’s appetite was suddenly gone. She looked at him but he wouldn’t look back at her and she bit her lip to ignore the hurt from that. “There’s no fighting the First Order. It’s just suicide.” Finn looked exhausted and burnt out, like he’d been carrying that weight with him and couldn’t bear to face it still.

Maz shifted her goggles and to the amazement of all of them began crawling on the table.

“What are you doing? What is she doing?” Finn shot a look at Han who just shrugged.

Maz stopped right before Finn’s face, staring him down, “If you live long enough you see the same eyes in different people. I’m looking at the eyes of a man who wants to run.”

Finn stared back in defiance, “You don’t know the first thing about me. Or the First Order. They’ll kill us all, we have to go.”

Maz made a noise that expressed her disagreement and settled back onto her chair, then nodded her head to the corner of the room where two aliens sat. “Those two can get you transportation in trade of work. They can take you to the outer rim.”

Finn stood up and Rey dropped the piece of fruit still in her hand, rushing after him and calling his name. “What are you doing?” she asked when she reached him, standing on the step of a stair to look down at him. “You can’t just go, I- I won’t let you.” She stubbornly refused to accept this. Memories of people leaving crept back to her but she pushed them away.

Finn swallowed and looked up at her, “I lied to you, Rey. I’m not a part of the Resistance. I’m not a hero. I am…I was a Stormtrooper. Like all of them I was taken from my family and raised to do one thing, but I wasn’t going to kill for them so I ran, I ran straight into you and you looked at me like no one ever had. I was ashamed of who I was, but I’m done with the First Order.” Finn broke off, his gaze turned into a plea, “Come with me, Rey.”

For a second she felt like she was back on Jakku again, her throat rough with sand from a storm as she struggled to find her way. It was only Finn’s eyes dropping and leaving hers that drove her into action. “Finn, stop, please.” She reached out to rest her hand on his arm, “I know you’re not Resistance.  _ I’m _ Resistance.” Finn’s head shot up at that, his eyes comically wide and mouth gaping. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t be too. You are a hero Finn, don’t you see?” Her throat felt tight as she tried to get her point across.

She’d lost so many people, her family and now Poe but she had gained a new family because of Han and Leia. She desperately didn’t want to lose Finn too, he was becoming important to her – he had known her and walked beside her as few had, like he instinctively just knew what to do.

“You helped me. You helped BB-8 and I know you can do more. Don’t go.” Rey felt her eyes get wet and blinked back the tears, “Stay with me.”

Finn’s hand came up as though to wipe her tears back too, but it stayed hovering between them. Rey wasn’t certain how long they waited but finally Finn nodded slowly.

“Okay,” he said, his hand falling back down to his side without touching her, and he grinned at Rey brilliantly. “Okay.”

The relief she felt nearly made her knees buckle and her smile was a little more watery than it should have been, but she had almost lost someone else. It was like-

_ Rey. _

A whisper in her mind made her jerk suddenly and she looked around but no one was looking at her except Finn. That only left the staircase behind her as the place it could have come from.

“Rey?” he asked, concerned.

“Stay here, just-” she held up a hand to forestall any arguments. “Stay here.” She turned and headed down the stairs. The hallway was barely lit down there and there were so many doors that she would have been lost had the whisper not gotten louder as she walked closer and closer to one door in particular.

She opened it up and immediately saw a chest lying on a box and stretched out her hand to open it. The second she did images came rushing through her mind.

_ She was in a hallway on an unknown world, her name being whispered as she ran and ran and – _

_ A hand touched an R2 unit that she vaguely recognized, there was no glove to cover the mechanical parts of the hand and – _

_ She was in the pouring rain, bodies all around her and the only colour on the world was the bright red lightsaber that ended a man’s life next to her. The masked company she saw as she turned around would forever haunt her dreams and– _

_ She was a girl, screaming and crying as she watched a ship leave her behind as a Unkar Plutt held her back, and she was begging for it to come back and being silenced all at once and – _

_ She was in the snowy woods, shivering and feeling colder than anything else in her life, a man crashed through the trees wearing the same mask that she had seen before making her stumble back and – _

Rey fell, out of breath, sweat on her skin, onto the hard floor of the room she had entered. She stared at the box in front of her and knew it was important but her mind kept racing through all of the events and wouldn’t stop to focus on any one thing. She had to get out of there, and had to get out now.

“I shouldn’t have come here,” she muttered and scrambled up. Maz stood in the hallway just staring at her with kind eyes. “What was that?” Rey asked.

“That lightsaber was Luke’s,” Maz said and signalled for Rey to come down to her level. She took Rey’s hand in her own. “And his father’s before him, and now it calls to you.”

It was all she had wanted for years after Leia had told her of the Jedi weapon, a lightsaber of her own, but her mind was too shaken by what she had seen to even comprehend it.

“There is a path before you,” Maz continued, her voice still kind. “You need to take it, to feel the Force around you grow greater. The light is always there. It will guide you.”

She should have taken it and Rey knew it. Instead she pulled her hands away and tried to ignore the shaking in them.

“I have to go,” Rey said, and went sprinting off, up the stairs and past Finn who called her name, but it made her wince. It reminded her of the whispers of her name in the vision and she felt like she was going to be sick from all the memories.

The woods were her only escape, all the life in them would help her sort things out. But as she breathed in the earthy smell, Rey didn’t feel any better. She still felt like she’d been turned inside out and didn’t know what she was doing. In the distance she could see Maz’s castle but was too far from it to return easily.

She stood there for a while, still shaking, when the sky was suddenly lit up in streaks of red. Between one breath and the next Rey felt it, the screams of millions as their lives were ended. Her breathing was laboured and she stumbled, holding herself up by resting against a tree. She wished that Leia was there, she wished that she hadn’t run out on Han and Finn, but mostly, for the first time, she wished that she had nothing to do with the Force as those screams echoed in her head.

In the distance she heard the rush of ships but it wasn’t as she hoped and her heart sank, instead of the Resistance ships she was used to it was the First Order.

“BB-8,” she realized in sharp fear, “Finn!”

Rey raced back towards the castle but drew to a halt as a figure crossed her path. It was the same one she had seen in her visions, the one who had killed without mercy. Kylo Ren.

She fumbled with the gun on her hip and drew it up to face him, firing it but he deflected the blast with his red lightsaber and took another step forward. Again she fired but it was to no avail. She had no weapon that could match the lightsaber except for the one back at the castle. She knew she needed it, but couldn’t see her way past Kylo Ren to get it.

It was like he was toying with her; he just continued his steady pace towards her and acted like her blasts were nothing, until finally Rey literally felt herself frozen. She felt a pressure on her that she recognized as another Force user.

She gritted her teeth and tried to fight back but her head was still swimming from everything that had happened.

“So,” Kylo Ren said, his voice deepened by a modulator, “You’ve seen the map.”

Her panic rose and she wanted to tear away from him as he touched her face, but, still frozen, she couldn’t. Tears streamed down her face and she wished at the very least that Finn and everyone else had gotten out all right.

“Sir, Resistance fighters!” a voice said behind her. “We need more troops.”

“Pull out,” Kylo Ren was looking at her although it was hard to tell from his mask, “We have everything we need.”

There was a flick of his hand and then Rey tumbled to the ground, everything going black around her.


	6. Chapter Five - Starkiller base

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I just wanted to say that even though I am absolutely awful at responding to comments thank you for each and every one of them, I really appreciate it as I had invested a lot of time in making this fic. <333

Rey awoke with a start and her heart pounding in her ears. She felt cold, and it took her a second to realize it was from the metal chair that she’d been placed in. She pulled at the manacles around her wrists that kept her there, baring her teeth in annoyance at them.

She looked around the room for anything that might help her, but stopped when her gaze fell on Kylo Ren sitting in front of her. “What do you want?” Rey asked, playing innocent. “Where are my friends?”

“Those murderers, traitors, and thieves?” The modulator made discerning emotion in his voice impossible and Rey held her breath as she waited to hear what had happened to them. “You’ll be relieved to hear I have no idea.”

She was, exhaling in relief but only relaxing a fraction. With her immediate worry belayed she chose to focus on what was going on now. It was hard, but she held back her power, her instincts telling her not to let Kylo Ren sense she was another Force user. 

“Why the mask?” Rey asked, trying to distract him, “Are you so bent on being a creature in hiding?”

To her surprise he reached up and unlatched the mask, standing up and walking towards her. Leia and Han had mentioned their son – and how they’d lost him to the Dark Side – but he wasn’t what Rey had expected. He lacked the red-rimmed eyes of Sith users that she had heard about, but the light that fell over his eyes displayed his dark determination.

“Tell me about the droid,” Kylo Ren said, stepping far too close to her.

“He’s a BB unit with a selenium drive and thermal hyperscan vindicator-” Rey babbled and scoffed like she couldn’t believe Kylo Ren didn’t know such things.

“He’s carrying a section of a navigational chart,” Kylo Ren cut her off. “We have the rest, recovered from the archives of the Empire. We need the last piece.” Rey nearly let loose a string of curses that would have made Han proud but stopped herself. “And somehow you convinced him to show it to you. You. A scavenger.”

Rey bit the inside of her cheek, insulted; while she still wore clothes similar to the ones she had worn on Jakku in the hope that someone – her family-  would recognize her, that didn’t mean she wanted to just sit there and take the disdain in his voice. She was proud of her history as a scavenger, it had led her to Han and Leia and the life she now had – it had led her to Finn, her mind reminded her and she turned a glare on Kylo Ren.

“You know I can just take whatever I want.” Kylo Ren raised his hand, nearly touching her face.

Rey felt a nervous sweat break out as she realized it wasn’t a threat but merely a statement, she balked against the sudden pressure that she felt against her mind. It was agonizing as it tried to sort through her memories, picking apart whatever didn’t matter and more and more her resolve was breaking down not to use her own powers.

“You were so lonely,” Kylo Ren mocked, his voice soft like he was trying to sympathize with her but she knew it wasn’t possible, “dreaming of an island.”

She felt tears spring to her eyes, reminded of how she struggled against Kylo Ren in the forest but this time she was more prepared, not addled by a vision. “Get out of my head,” she hissed at him.

“You see Han Solo as a father figure.” Kylo Ren frowned. “He’ll disappoint you.”

“He hasn’t yet,” Rey retorted, her temper rising at the insult to the man she did see as her father.

“You’ve seen the map. You’ll give it to me, don’t be afraid, I feel it, too.”

She’d had enough and probed outward with the Force, flipping the power back on Kylo Ren and skimming through his thoughts. “You’re afraid,” she stated, and furrowed her brow as she deciphered what she’d seen, “that you’ll never be as strong as Darth Vader.”

Kylo Ren jerked back, his eyes wide with a mixture of fear and fury. The pressure on her mind stopped immediately and she fell back into the chair, sweat dripping down her neck.

He didn’t say another word to her as he marched out the room. Hysterical laughter bubbled up and threatened to spill over at the relief she felt, but Rey knew she still had things to do.

Behind her she could hear the scuffle of shoes as a guard marched to his post. Taking a deep breath and calming herself, she drew on her power again.

“You will remove these restraints and leave this cell with the door open.” Her voice shook a little and the sound of footsteps echoed in the room as the Stormtrooper marched straight up to her.

“What did you say?”

“You will remove these restraints and leave this cell with the door open.” This time she put more force into her voice and the reaction was instantaneous.

For a second she thought that the Stormtrooper was about to shoot her but instead he pressed a button nearby and her restraints sprung open. He began to walk out and Rey raised her voice again, “And you’ll drop your weapon.”

She heard him repeat her order and the weapon clanged to the ground. Rey scrambled up and grabbed it, holding it tightly to her as she peeked out into the hallway. No one was there but the Stormtrooper she had already tricked, so she began her voyage out of the base.

Or so she had hoped, instead she ended up being lost in the twist of hallways that seemed to go nowhere. It felt like she’d been wandering for hours and at one point she’d even had to sneak through a panel in the wall to avoid being caught.

She had just finished climbing up the wall again when she heard a noise and rearranged the blaster in her hands, ready to fire. She nearly dropped it when Finn, Han and Chewbacca came into view. Words escaped her as she rushed up to them, stopping right before Finn and grinning at him.

“You came.”

“Course we did,” Han rested a hand on her shoulder and squeezed, it was clear he was more than relieved to see her and Rey stepped forward to hug him, forcing him to let out a breath in surprise. “Easy, kid, you’re okay, right?”

She nodded, pulling back and turning towards Finn again. “Thank you,” she said softly.

Finn smiled back at her, “Couldn’t just leave you.”

Chewbacca growled and Rey blinked in surprise, her mouth falling open again. Finn looked between her and Chewbacca curiously, “What’d he say?”

“That it was your idea.” Rey breathed out and then threw her arms around Finn and pressed her face into his neck, she was caught up in all her emotions that people had come back for her. It took Finn a couple seconds before he hugged her back just as tightly and Rey could have stayed like that forever. It was amazing how well the two of them fit and she didn’t ever want to lose that feeling.

Han cleared his throat. “Escape now, hug later,” he told them and they both looked a little embarrassed as they parted. He shot her a pointed look, raising his eyebrow and Rey knew he’d be teasing her about this later.

Rey followed Finn and the others through the base but the second they got outside she realized just how cold the planet was. She hadn’t dealt much with snow and definitely wasn’t dressed for it. Finn noticed her shivering and without another word shrugged off his jacket to pass it to her. She burrowed into its warmth as they looked up at the space battle happening above them.

It wasn’t going well and they could all see it.

“They need help.” Han frowned and turned to the rest of them, “We brought along explosives, let’s use them. Chewie and I will set these up, you need to get the doors open for us.”

“Those are two separate areas,” Finn broke in and pointed to the oscillator. “You’ll have to get there but the security set up is over there.” He pointed elsewhere beyond the horizon.

“Then you’ll have to get there as soon as you can and meet us at the base,” Han told him, and he and Chewbacca turned to race off towards the closest base.

“Any ideas?” Rey asked, less cold now but still shivering slightly.

Finn nodded his head towards a speeder, “I got one.”


	7. Chapter Six - Starkiller Base/D'Qar

They were noticed almost as soon as as they tore off on the speeder through the snow. First Order soldiers fired at them from their own speeders, and Rey fired back from the passenger seat but hardly landed any hits.

“Switch!” Finn yelled to her, and they did some maneuvering so she was in the pilot seat and he had the blaster. It felt much more comfortable to her as she drove the speeder quickly but carefully to dodge the blaster shots headed their way.

Finn made the shooting look easy ,though Rey knew just how difficult it was and was left slightly in awe of his skill. The last of the troopers following them sputtered out of sight with a well-placed shot by Finn just as they reached the security base.

Rey’s teeth chattered as she sunk low enough in the deep snow to get it in her boots, but she raced towards the door anyway, with Finn only a step behind her. There wasn’t much time to talk as she focused on rerouting the security panels. She knew they had to meet up with Han and Chewbacca soon, and after a few seconds of fiddling, out of sheer instinct she grabbed a part and pulled it out of the juncture.

“That should do it,” Rey said. “We need to get to the other base.”

She caught the worried look on Finn’s face, but it faded as he nodded in determination and, once more in sync, they stepped out side by side to get back to the speeder. A bad feeling settling in her stomach made Rey push the speeder a little harder this time. She wasn’t sure what she was sensing, but she knew it was nothing good.

They reached the other base and cautiously surveyed it. After seeing too many stormtroopers near the entrance, they bolted up an unguarded ladder behind the entrance, stopping only once to glance up to the sky that was far too dark and cast an eerie glow over them.

“Here.” Rey shrugged off the jacket and passed it back to Finn as he passed the Stormtrooper blaster back to her. “I think I’m okay now.” She didn’t mention that she’d seen him shivering and gotten worried, and instead turned to press the button that would open the door to the base.

They entered just in time to see Han walking towards Kylo Ren. Rey’s pulse shot up, the bad feeling she’d gotten before just increasing with every step Han took. When he reached Kylo Ren,  she could see them speak, then Kylo Ren releasing the latches of his helmet, letting it fall to the ground.

“What’s he doing?” Finn whispered, though no one would have been able to hear them from their vantage point far above everyone else.

Trying to save his son, Rey thought but didn’t reply. Her mouth felt like she was back on Jakku and she had swallowed too much dust; words wouldn’t come out.

She saw the movement first, the slightest twitch in Kylo Ren’s hand and Rey screamed, “NO!” She Force pushed Kylo Ren’s hand just to the side as the lightsaber turned on, grazing Han and causing him to grunt loudly in pain.

Next to her Finn screamed as well and below them she heard a shot fired, no doubt from Chewbacca. It hit Kylo Ren in the side, making him slip to his knees. His head shot up and caught sight of them, and Rey felt a cold shiver go down her spine that had nothing to do with the temperature.

Rey saw Chewbacca run onto the ramp and grab Han, pulling him back as Stormtroopers fired at them with no mercy. Kylo Ren, still staring at her and Finn, stood once more, then marched determinedly down the ramp.

“We need to go,” Finn pulled at Rey’s arm and broke her stupor. They turned and headed out the door and down the ladder again, but didn’t reach the speeder before Stormtroopers came around the bend and shot at them. “This way!” Finn grabbed onto her hand, a warm presence in the otherwise cold world. “The Falcon’s over here.”

The snow slowed them down, but once they’d reached the woods they were able to the Stormtroopers following them. For a second everything seemed okay and then a dark presence made itself known just on the edges of Rey’s mind.

She clutched at her blaster, out of breath, as Kylo Ren stepped into view. The ominous red of his lightsaber lit up the forest around him and made Rey frown.

“This isn’t over,” Kylo Ren said. Without his mask his voice sounded less threatening – almost human - but Rey knew better.

“You’re a monster.” She raised her blaster and prepared to fire, but suddenly felt the pressure of the Force throwing her back into a tree. Rey fell to the ground, her vision going blurry as she nearly passed out, and could hear Finn yelling her name as everything went dark.

She woke with her cheek pressed against the snow and Finn’s screams in the air. This time they weren’t merely worried, but genuinely from pain. Rey bolted upright to see Kylo Ren had pinned Finn to a tree and was pressing the hilt of lightsaber against Finn’s shoulder, burning him.

He pulled away and Finn stumbled to the ground, hissing in pain. Finn got up again  but Rey saw that would do no good; Kylo Ren was already raising his lightsaber in the air and would strike Finn a blow that would be fatal, or at least cause permanent damage.

“Finn!” Rey pushed out with the Force once more but this time she caused Finn to move rather than Kylo Ren, just desperate to get him out of the way of the lightsaber. It was enough and Kylo Ren’s attack missed, but Finn, weak from the previous hit, fell into the snow, dropping the lightsaber.

Kylo Ren reached out for it. Rey could feel it in the Force, he was trying to pull it to him, but she wasn’t going to allow it. He’d done enough damage to the people she cared about today, and she reached out herself to call the lightsaber to her. It whirled past Kylo Ren and into her waiting hand where she turned it on and readied herself for a fight the way that Leia had taught her.

It felt right in her hand, like a weapon she’d been waiting for, and thanks to all her staff training she could adapt easily to the attacks that Kylo Ren threw at her. He slashed in the air, trying desperately to knock Rey off her feet, but she blocked every attempt.

He still had years of training on her though, and Rey’s muscles burned as she fought, tiring her out, and he could see it. An explosion rocked the earth and it shuddered around them, opening up cliffs and breaking off huge chunks of earth.

Rey reached the edge of one such cliff as Kylo Ren slashed downward at her, and she barely had time to raise her lightsaber to match it and hold him off.

“You need a teacher,” he yelled to her.

“I have one,” Rey retorted.

“I can show you the true ways of the Force,” Kylo Ren growled, bearing down more onto her, and she felt her knees nearly buckle.

She was about to snap that she knew the true ways of the Force, courtesy of Kylo Ren’s own mother, when it reminded her of all the lessons Leia had given her. That there were times you just needed to breath and look in on yourself to the power you held.

Rey shut her eyes and did so, letting her mind wander back to her days in the Resistance, of being taught by Leia and Han, becoming friends with so many in the X-Wing Squadron – including Poe -  and that path had led her here. Led her to meeting Finn and confronting what she was meant to do as a Jedi: help those around her.

It was the strength she needed, and Rey surprised Kylo Ren by pushing him off, forcing him to stumble back. She quickly continued her attack, slashing near his face and causing him to fall. When he tried to stand up, Rey stopped him by cutting through the air and knocking his hand to cause his lightsaber to fly out of it.

She stalked around him, watching for any more points where he might attack when the earth shook once more and separated them.

She shut her lightsaber off and turned to run back through the woods in the spot where she had left Finn. When she spotted him she dropped to her knees and turned him over, resting his head in her arms.

“Finn?” Her voice wavered as tears spilled out of her eyes. He felt so cold now, and it made her heart feel like it was tightening in her chest in worry. “Finn!” she yelled his name, then quietly begged him to open his eyes. It wasn’t right, she had saved him – it wasn’t supposed to end like this.

“Please, Finn, don’t leave me,” she said, echoing her words to him on Takodana. She meant them then and even more now. He had come into her life and changed something, made it easier, made it better, and she adored him so much for it.

Lights shining down on them made her look up, half in horror and half in hope. When she saw it was the Falcon she called out in joy, but didn’t let go of Finn, not until Chewbacca came down the ramp and towards them to carry Finn back to the ship.

Han was leaning against the doorway when they entered and frowned in worry when he saw Finn. He was clutching at his side which was swathed in bandages courtesy of Chewbacca until he could get into a bacta bath when they got back to home base.

“Stay with him, kid, we got this,” Han said, but still winced in pain as he turned. If Rey hadn’t been so worried about Finn she’d have piloted the ship herself and demanded Han sit as well, but for now she forced herself into medic mode.

They reached the base shortly after the X-Wings, and a medic team barged onto the Falcon to treat Finn.

“He’ll be okay,” they assured Rey, “just exhaustion.”

The relief hit her hard and she stumbled down the ramp in a blur. The first thing she saw was Poe, alive and well and looking on in concern as Finn was carted off. The second thing was Leia hugging Han carefully with tears in her eyes. When she spotted Rey she reached out her hand and pulled Rey into the hug. They both maneuvered carefully so as not to hurt Han, but he clutched them back hard.

“I’m sorry,” Han said and there was a look between him and Leia.

“There’s still time,” Leia sighed. “I’m just glad you came back at all.”

Han huffed with amusement and put his hand on Rey’s shoulder, “That’s all on her.”

He was pulled away from them by the medics and grumbled about them poking and prodding. Rey held onto Leia’s hand as they watched him go.

“So,” Leia turned to her and nodded at the lightsaber attached to her hip, “I think we need to talk.”

“Can it wait?” Rey asked, shuffling on her feet a little, “I want to check on Finn.”

Leia raised an eyebrow but nodded, reaching over to hug Rey before waving her off.

Rey made her way to the medbay and saw Poe already waiting there. The two of them hugged each other fiercely and collapsed into the chairs next to Finn’s bed. They traded stories of what had happened to them before Rey yawned loudly.

“When was the last time you slept?” Poe asked her, frowning.

“I’m not leaving him,” Rey said stubbornly, and Poe held up his hands.

“Didn’t say you should, but maybe get some sleep.” Poe sighed as he ran a hand through his hair, “I gotta report to the General about now.” He stood reluctantly and patted her on the shoulder as he walked around her.

Now alone, Rey watched Finn in contemplation, taking in every rise of his chest as breathed, and finding a comfort in it. She reached out and took his hand, yawning again.

To her surprise the hand in hers shifted and Finn’s eyes scrunched before they opened. He looked around before his eyes fell on Rey and he smiled.

“Hey,” Finn said, a little raspy and he pushed himself up with the hand not holding onto Rey’s.

“Hey,” Rey replied, grinning, she jumped out of her chair to pull Finn into a hug, wrapping her arms around his shoulder and breathing out in relief.

It was good to be home.

 

**Epilogue**

“You’re sure I can’t come?” Finn crossed his arms as he looked up at the Falcon.

“Leia needs you here,” Rey pointed out. “And I need to find Luke.” Finn grumbled under his breath again and Rey reached out to tug his arms out of their crossed position. “She needs someone she can trust and who can strategize. She needs you,” Rey said, but that didn’t stop her from feeling a little guilty that they were splitting up. “I’ll be back, I promise.”

“You better,” Finn smiled at her, “Or I’ll have to come get you.”

Rey stood on her toes to press a kiss to his lips, just a quick one in goodbye though she wished she could have made it longer, “I know you will.”

They’d see each other again, she knew that. Their paths were entwined together, and no matter how far apart they were in the galaxy, they’d find each other side by side once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well this is it, the last chapter. and once more I'd like to thank everyone who left kudos and comments and I hope that I made an enjoyable fic for you to read. and all the thanks to Lexi my beta, the real hero of this story.


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